Reconnaître
by Le Penguin
Summary: Sorey grew up alone in Elysia. After becoming the Shepherd, he meets a young prodigy seraph - and that loneliness seems but a distant memory. (AU)


Sorey had had an exciting last few months.

He'd lived a pretty quiet life in Elysia up until now: reading books, roaming the grassy fields, and exploring the nearby ruins, when he could – they were so fascinating, but so confusing, and treacherous to go into all alone. He'd convinced the seraphs who raised him to accompany him once or twice, but they always seemed more concerned with his safety than exploring, and never were much for conversation on the ruins' history.

This quiet life ended at age eighteen, when a girl named Alisha showed up, disoriented and wounded, at Elysia's gate. She'd wandered into the ruins from the outside world – a miracle in itself that she made it out in one piece – and Sorey found himself accompanying her back to her home city of Ladylake. He'd never been _alone_ in Elysia, certainly – but growing up as a small human child in a town filled with ageless seraphim was…lonely, sometimes. Perhaps in the outside world, he'd find something to fill the missing piece in his heart.

In Ladylake, well. One thing lead to another, and then he was being named Shepherd and tasked with the purification of the world.

Lailah was kind and clearly quite experienced: first and foremost, they would undertake the task of finding seraphim willing to contract with him. Her eyes glinted as she described a likely prospect: a young water seraph, only about Sorey's age, but a true prodigy in his talents. He had grown well-warded by a collective of water seraphim, but had recently taken up residence in the city of Marlind; his talents having narrowly prevented the city's guardian seraph from being overcome with stress and malevolence.

The idea of a seraph so young was already enough to pique Sorey's interests – he'd never met one who didn't count their age in centuries, much less one who could call himself Sorey's age. When Sorey and Lailah arrived in Marlind, Lailah dragged him into the inn's bedroom to fuss over him – telling him to scrub his face, comb his hair, fix his clothes – and deflected Sorey's questions with a wave of her hand, tidying the room as Sorey scrubbed the dirt from his nails.

"You'll understand when you're older. And you'll thank me later!"

Lailah clasped her hands together delightedly when Sorey finally ( _finally)_ cleaned himself up enough to meet her standards. She rushed from the room in a flurry of skirts, only belatedly shouting her intentions to "be right back!" when Sorey questioned her sudden departure.

Sorey collapsed into the room's overstuffed armchair, sighed, and dug his copy of the Celestial Record out of his pack. While Lailah went to fetch this prodigy she was so wound up about, Sorey could at least get some reading done.

Lailah was, indeed, right back. She glided into the room elegantly, presenting her guest with a practiced wave of her arm.

"Shepherd Sorey. Permit me to introduce the young seraph Mikleo."

The problem here – the problem here was…the problem was that seraphim were very beautiful, Sorey could tell you that, but the problem here was that there was a problem. Here. If you gave Sorey a pen and paper and asked him to jot down a general description on what he considered to be a very beautiful person, Sorey could apparently have just skipped this whole thought exercise and just scrawled Mikleo across the parchment and then continued to stare at him slack-jawed.

Lailah covered her smile with her sleeve and stepped back a few paces, as if to watch the carnage of the raging fire she had lit. Mikleo's head tilted to the side, and Sorey belatedly realized he was looking at the cover of the Celestial Record and it probably wasn't a symptom of an inner-ear infection. Oh god, Sorey had no idea what he was doing; he had nothing to offer this brilliant, gorgeous prodigy seraph other than a knack for making jerky and a bunch of stories about himself falling off things as a child. He wouldn't blame Mikleo for just turning around and leaving without saying a word.

"Is that…the Celestial Record?" Mikleo said, curious excitement filling his voice.

Oh, that just had to be the first thing he said to him. Sorey thought he couldn't be more head-over-heels, and then Mikleo pulled that out – a prodigy to be sure. Sorey stiffly gestured with the book, clearing his throat and hoping to god that his voice wouldn't crack.

"Yeah, it's, uh, I've had it since I was a kid…"

Mikleo seated himself across from Sorey, smiling wide. The afternoon light caught the different shades of violet in his eyes, and his hair looked so fine and soft, and oh, seraphim were so very beautiful, but Mikleo was a prodigy, he truly was. "Lady Lailah mentioned you were raised in Elysia. Have you seen the aqueducts of Ladylake? Are they as grand as described in the book?"

Sorey felt his nervousness begin to dissipate, and he found himself flipping to the section on Ladylake before he even realized it. "Yeah, and shockingly well-preserved, considering their age. It's really amazing that the structure has managed to keep its integrity, considering it's entirely subterranean…"

Yes, yes, it was all so splendid! Lailah adored the sight of young love. The flushing cheeks, the laughter, the shy glances – love was a fire that rivaled the flames of her purity, and it was a rival she could not help but respect.

Alas, she could not expect that her fellow seraphim would be able to appreciate her passions. If they could not appreciate something as universally divine as a perfect curl, what hope did they have of understanding why matchmaking lit a fire in her heart? It was dreadfully tragic, and her joy at matching up her new young shepherd with the lonely prodigy seraph was tempered with pity as she spoke with Mikleo's guardians.

"It is nonsense," scoffed the leader of the collective. "Absolute nonsense that Mikleo, of all seraphs, would want to race off with a human he's known for all of a day. He is a responsible lad, a serious young seraph, and-"

Lailah shushed her fellow seraph with an annoyed flap of her hand, and continued spying on her charges' date. Peals of laughter rang through Marlind. The moment Mikleo had mentioned he'd never partaken of human food, Sorey had taken it upon himself to treat Mikleo to an ice cream sundae from the inn. Sorey watched raptly, adoringly, as Mikleo examined the dish, examined the spoon. Mikleo's eyebrows were furrowed in thought.

"That's used to eat with." Sorey gently adjusted Mikleo's grip on the utensil. "Use it to scoop some up and try!"

Mikleo obliged, and oh, the way Sorey's face lit up at Mikleo's slow, delighted smile! Lailah could barely stand the purity of it all! She took a moment to collect herself, fanning her face with her sleeves. The leader of the water seraph collective gazed upon the scene, gazed upon her charge's adoring look at this human boy, and sighed in acceptance.

"FIRST YOU STEAL LAILAH FROM ME," Atakk wailed, pounding on Sorey's shins with all the force he could muster. Which wasn't much, through all that weeping. "NOW YOU'VE NABBED MIKLEO RIGHT FROM UNDER MY NOSE! THIS RIVALRY ISN'T OVER!"

Atakk hurled himself into Mikleo's arms. Mikleo was just fast enough to prevent him from blowing his nose on his sleeves.

"Don't worry, Mikleo, Papa Atakk will win you and your mama back from this chump," Atakk managed to choke out. "Stay strong, my son – your daddy will save you from this arranged marriage and will be there to read you your bedtime stories soon."

With that, Atakk flounced off into the trees, screaming his own name as a battle cry. There was a long, awkward silence. Sorey coughed.

"…so-"

"I met him two weeks ago when I first got to Marlind. We had a brief discussion on art history and I hadn't seen him since," Mikleo said, flatly.

Sorey was happy that Mikleo had so many people that recognized how wonderful Mikleo was, but hoped that they wouldn't all try to beat him up on sight.

Sorey awoke in a panic. Disoriented and bruised, the events of the last few hours came flooding back to him: the war, the brutality, the Lord of Calamity ripping his senses out of him, Mikleo's agonized scream of his name before his ears went deaf to his voice –

The stone walls around him were unfamiliar, the bed also. But oh, the white head resting upon the mattress beside him – in so short a time, that had become more familiar than his own shadow. Sorey weakly tried to raise his hand, and found it beyond his capabilities. Instead, he gently brushed Mikleo's cheek with his fingers.

Mikleo jumped at the contact, and his head snapped up, eyes wild, red, and swollen. He stared at Sorey, one hand coming up hesitantly.

"Sorey," he whispered. "If you…if you can see me, touch my hand."

Though aching and battered and sore, Sorey couldn't deny Mikleo anything. He willed his aching muscles, slowly, agonizingly slowly, lifting one shaking hand up to touch his fingertips to Mikleo's.

His fingers were soft and cool, soothing against Sorey's skin as Mikleo entwined their fingers. Sorey's other hand had found the strength to brush a thumb against Mikleo's cheekbone, wiping away the tears that had begun to fall fresh from his eyes.

"I'm here," Sorey rasped out. "Mikleo..."

Mikleo clambered onto the bed, fitting his slender body alongside Sorey's. Sorey groaned in frustration.

"Mikleo," Sorey begged. The right words wouldn't come. He searched Mikleo's eyes for understanding. "Please…"

Mikleo's hand came up to rest on Sorey's heart. Its rapid-fire pace thudded painfully against Sorey's bones. The touch of Mikleo's lips against his mouth threatened to make it burst from his chest.

A sob of relief ripped itself from Sorey's chest as Mikleo climbed onto him more properly, the weight and smell and sound and sight of him real and firm and pressed whole against his body. Eighteen years of loneliness had been made a memory by Mikleo's entrance into his life, and today had been a painful reminder that it could all end in an instant. Sorey dragged his arms up and snaked them around Mikleo's slim waist, pressing him harder against his chest. Mikleo gasped against his mouth, and Sorey took the opening to deepen the kiss. Mikleo's hands clutched at him desperately, full of need, sliding up his shirt to rest on bare skin –

Sorey hadn't heard someone clear their throat from the room's entrance, but Mikleo sure did. He sprang off Sorey as if he'd been scalded, stumbling as he nearly lost his footing on the floor. Lailah delicately put a tray of food and water down on a wooden box next to the door, then just as delicately, shut the door behind her.

But not before slipping her hand through the crack to give a little thumbs up.

"Now, Edna, I believe we had a deal."

Edna grumbled and dug in her pockets. She detested losing bets, but was the honorable sort. She slapped a cool five hundred gald into Lailah's waiting palm.

"Five hundred that they run off and elope mid-trip; yeah, yeah."

Edna had bet her money that fussy little Meebo would want a more elaborate ceremony after the journey was over, but as always, he seemed out to irritate her. Once they'd arrived in Lastonbell, the minute they'd taken their eyes off them, those two little brats had scurried off to beg the town's seraph to oversee their wedding vows. Now, the lovebirds were nuzzling at each other at the next inn table over, wearing matching rings (where did they even get the money for that), and feeding each other bites of their ice cream sundae (oh, barf).

Worse still, Sorey didn't even seem to care how insane he probably looked to the humans around him. The least they could do was get a room. Edna voiced this opinion, and the newlyweds had the gall to blush, look at each other, and shyly agree. That was worse. That was _way_ worse.

Rose thumped Edna on the back sympathetically.

"Cheer up, Edna. You lost that bet, but my husband just ran off with another man."


End file.
